How to Save Money without Buying New Software Licenses

This is the third and final blog in our series on how to effectively manage your software licenses to get the most value from your investment. In the first blog, we discussed reasons for keeping your licenses up to date. In the second, we reviewed ways to save money through various licensing options. Today, we wrap up with a look at other ways to save money without buying new licenses.

In the previous blog, we discussed the value of Concurrent Licenses for making software available to multiple users, but even that option might not work if too many users are vying for application time. While buying another license is certainly one solution, there are other remedies to try first.

At Golden Software, we recommend our customers get their internal IT departments involved in making sure existing licenses are being used efficiently. IT experts can study the usage logs of software applications to find out who is using them, when and for how long. With this information, a schedule can be created to ration access among users, trying to accommodate their preferred login times of day.

Some IT groups have deployed automated license management systems that track and schedule use among personnel and department. One example is OpenLM. Such a package can even notify IT when an application is open for long periods and log a user out if no activity is detected for a certain period. The primary advantage of license management software is that it ensures efficient use of software, but the secondary benefit is it frees up IT time so those technicians can focus on other tasks. [Note: These packages can be expensive, which means their cost should be weighed against the money they will save you.]

Another scenario for freeing up software times is to leverage the automation capabilities built into many packages today. Similar to the 'macros' in Microsoft Word, a short script can be created to automate a process, analysis, or report generation function that is frequently repeated. By automating these functions to a couple mouse clicks, time online can be reduced dramatically for some users, freeing up login time for their colleagues. The savings can be significant.

Smart license management can save a lot of money for organizations with numerous software seats. Most software vendors will help you determine which license option makes the most sense for your circumstances. I recommend you chat with a sales representative.

Are you interested in learning which license options are the best for your use of our Golden Software products? Give us a call at (303) 279-1021.

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